o Background: Lardie, 37, has been in the restaurant business for about a dozen years. With a degree in restaurant management from Texas Tech University and about 10 years working for Johnny Carino’s Italian Restaurants, Lardie was ready to own his own restaurant when the opportunity arose to purchase the closing David’s Steakhouse in early 2011.

His history with food dates back much farther than his resume.

“I started cooking when I was probably 12,” he said. “My mom was a bad cook ... and I hate leftovers, and my brother and dad hate them, so I was allowed to play with them and transform them into something else.”

Soon, his mom made him an offer: She’d buy the ingredients and do the clean-up if he’d make all the meals.

“Food just makes sense to me,” Lardie said. “I’m not a mathemetician or a rocket scientist. But flavors just click.”

o The criteria: Lardie said he looks for two particular qualities when dining out: quality and speed.

“I spend 70 hours a week in a restaurant,” he said. “I don’t want to wait all day for my food.”

His parents owned a restaurant in Muleshoe for a couple of years, but “it didn’t work out.”

That doesn’t mean, though, that his mother’s traditional Mexican cooking wasn’t popular in the area: She made a name for herself in a rudimentary food truck, selling burritos and tamales to migrant workers.

Bara jumped at the chance, about 20 years later, to break into the food business and open his first La Fiesta Grande in 1983.

Today, many of his family members have joined him in the business, including daughter Jennifer, who serves with her father on the board of Panhandle Restaurant Association.

o The criteria: Aside from cleanliness, Bara said he’s mostly drawn “where they cook everything daily like we do.”

“I don’t like stuff that’s going to be nuked or boiled in a bag,” he said. “I want it fresh.”

o His picks: Maybe it’s because he represents so many fellow restaurateurs on local and state boards, but Bara’s a huge fan of what Amarillo has to offer.

“We travel a lot, from the East Coast to the West, but hands down, Amarillo’s got some of the best restaurants,” he said.